Observations focused on the problems of an underdeveloped country, Venezuela, with some serendipity about the world (orchids, techs, science, investments, politics) at large. A famous Venezuelan, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, referred to oil as the devil's excrement. For countries, easy wealth appears indeed to be the sure path to failure. Venezuela might be a clear example of that.

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One million real page reads for the Devil, how many fake pro-Chavez votes in the recall referendum?

May 14, 2006

Sometimes in the next few hours, I will get the one millionth “page read”
according to the salon.com ranking system. Remarkable that what started
as a curiosity on my part in August 2002 has had so many visitors and
despite its somewhat restricted topic has managed to stay up there in
the salon.com rankings. To tell you the truth, its not only had many
more visitors than I expected, but I have made more posts than I ever
imagined. It certainly beats the school newspaper I started in high
school called “Se dice…” (People say…), a weekly rag which was
banned by the school authorities after only three weeks of very
succesful printing.

Perhaps the thrill of writing a blog like this can be best summarized by something that happened last night.Two nights ago I posted
part II of the recall studies by Delfino, Salas and Medina and was particularly
taken by the results of the regional election in October 2004. To me,
seeing that data was the strongest and most compelling proof that may be understood by
anyone that the results of the 2004 recall referendum were fabricated
by the CNE. Then, I began exchanging emails with a good friend on how
strange those results were and amieres in the comments pointed out a single case that was truly amazing. In his own words:

“How about this one example: Escuela Raul Leoni, Parroquia Santa
Apolonia, Municipio La Ceiba, Estado Trujillo. Signatures=762,Referendum 2004=616/938 (40%/60%); Regionals 2004=1247/530 (70%/30%);
Presidentials 1998=689/318 (68%/32%); Presidentials 2000=597/466
(56%/44%) In this center they have been pro opposition in 1998(68%),
2000(56%) but amazingly in August 2004(40%) the completely flipped and
in Octber 2004(70%) they flipped again and became the most pro
opposition they have ever been!!!

Think
about it. At this voting machine the opposition has always had more
than 56% of the vote, but miracolously, in the recall vote, the
opposition only got 40% of the vote in the form of 616 Si (Yes) votes
and then, as abstentrion went up and the opposition was demolarized, twice as many people came out in the October 2004 regional elections to vote, given the opposition 70% of the vote in the form of 1247 votes for it!

I
asked the same reader if he could check in how many voting machines the
number of pro-opposition votes was larger than the Si (Yes) votes in
the referendum and he quickly answered:

“There are 2181 cases (out 8228 centers, a full 27%) where there were
more votes in the regionals for the opposition than SIs in the
referendum!!! And that considering that many people didn’t vote in the
regionals because of the disapointment because of the Referendum result.”

This
is by far the clearest and most convincing proof of the fraud that took
place at the recall referendum. It does not require mathematical
knowledge to understand how implausible it would be that a demoralized
opposition, with abstention increasing from 30% to 60%, would increase
the absolute number of votes in 27% of the voting machines. Take that
Carter Center and Jorge Rodriguez! Dare to explain it!Or even try!

I
did not require this to believe that there was fraud, the matehmatical
studies for me were convicing enough. But this information should be
useful in convincing many that still think there was no fraud on that
fateful August day.

In contrast to these fake numbers, and we don’t even know how many of those there were in the recall referendum, my visitors are all real and they seem to like coming here
searching for the truth and helping in finding the truth. That in
itslef is satisfaction enough for all of the work that goes into writing this.